Sliding drawers are commonly built into kitchen cabinets, desks, dining room cabinetry, office furniture, and the like to provide more convenient access to storage space therein. Typically, the drawers are mounted behind cabinet doors which serve to close off and provide a clean, finished, external appearance when the cabinet is not in use. When access into the cabinet is desired, the doors are swung open to a position perpendicular or obtuse to the front plane of the cabinet, clearing the opening to allow a drawer to be slid out from the interior of the cabinet.
However, if the doors are not fully opened, or if they swing back, it often happens that when the drawers are pulled out, their front edges bump against and scratch the inside surface of the doors. This is especially bothersome if the cabinet doors are made of expensive wood or a custom finish. Also, if a drawer is not returned to its fully retracted position, an attempt to close the cabinet doors can cause the doors to bump against the protruding front edges of the drawers. After repeated use, scratch lines and other marks can become gouged into the doors and create an unsightly appearance which is difficult to restore.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,717 issued Jan. 19, 1999 to the same inventor, a drawer stop device is disclosed for preventing the edges of sliding drawers from bumping against and scratching the inside surface of cabinet doors when the drawers are pulled out. In one embodiment shown in FIGS. 1, 2A, 2B, and 2C, the prior drawer stop device 10 is mounted to sliding drawers 20 in a cabinet 30. The cabinet 30 has a front opening 31 and at least one front door 32 vertically hinged (not shown) to one lateral side of the cabinet. The door 32 is movable between a closed position in which it covers the front opening 31 and hides the drawers 20 when they are slidingly retracted to a retracted position into the interior of the cabinet, and a fully open position (shown in FIG. 1) which allows clearance for the drawers to be slidingly extended out through the front opening 31 of the cabinet.
Each sliding drawer 20 has a front panel 21 horizontally elongated with opposite ends spaced apart by a given width, a bottom panel 22, and opposed side walls 23 which are fixed together in an open quadrangular shape defined with opposite vertical front edges 24. The drawer stop device 10 has a flat mounting portion 11 fixed to a bearing portion 12. The bearing portion 12 includes a bearing flange (also 12) which projects perpendicularly from the mounting portion and a roller element 13 rotatably mounted on a vertical mounting axis defined on an end of the bearing flange 12.
As shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, the stop device is mounted in one preferred way by fixing its mounting portion 11 to a front surface of the front panel 21 of the drawer (such as with screws or fasteners) adjacent to the one vertical front edge 24 proximate to the one lateral side of the cabinet to which the door is hingedly mounted. The roller element 13 mounted on the bearing portion 12 of the drawer stop device 10 projects by a predetermined amount beyond the vertical front edge 24 of the drawer so that it will make rolling contact with the door just ahead of the front edge 24. When the drawer 20 is pulled outwardly, the roller element 13 engages the door (direction of arrow AA) with a rolling motion which avoids damage to its surface and prevents sharp contact between the drawer and the door. The roller element can also, with sufficient sliding acceleration of the drawer, act to further open the door outwardly.
The drawer stop device typically might have a height for the mounting portion of 0.5 to 0.75 inch, a length for the bearing portion of about 1.5 to 2.0 inches, and a diameter of the roller element of about 0.5 to 0.75 inches. The roller element can be covered or made entirely of a smooth material, such as a hard nylon or plastic material. When mounted in a proper position, the contact surface of the roller element projects a predetermined amount, e.g., about 1.0 inch, so that it makes rolling contact with the door ahead of the vertical front edge of the drawer.
The drawer stop device may be used in paired set with another device used when retracting the drawer. Referring to FIGS. 3A and 3B, this configuration is useful where the drawer front panel 21 has ends which extend by a small amount of trim laterally beyond the outer side of the side walls 23. If the drawer has a sliding range which can extend beyond the width of the door, then upon retraction the jutting trim can become wedged by the door or may pinch the fingers of a person holding the front edges of the drawer (direction of arrow BB). Therefore, a second drawer stop device 10B of similar construction as the first-mentioned device referenced as 10A is mounted by its mounting portion 11B on the side wall 23 behind the front panel trim. Its bearing portion 12B mounts a roller element 13B such that it projects by a predetermined amount beyond the lateral extent of the trim of the front panel 21. Upon retraction of the drawer, the front edge of the door would be engaged in rolling contact with the roller element 10B and is pushed outwardly by it so as to allow unimpeded retraction of the drawer into the cabinet.
In FIG. 4, another embodiment has drawer stop devices with roller elements 16 mounted on opposite sides at a bottom part of the drawers. As shown in FIGS. 5A, 5B, and 5C, the mounting flange is formed as an integral part of a lateral rail 14 on which the drawer 20 slides, and the bearing portion is a flat piece 15 perpendicular to the lateral rail 14. The lateral rail 14 is mounted on the side walls 23 of the drawer along a bottom part of the drawer. The roller elements 16 are positioned so as to project by a predetermined amount beyond the vertical front edges of the drawers to make rolling contact with the door in the manner described previously.
However, the prior drawer stop device has the disadvantage that each unit is configured to be mounted on either one of the left or right-handed sides of the drawer. This requires two different units to be fabricated for left and right-sided mounting on cabinet drawers. If the drawer stop devices are packaged in sets with both left and right-handed units. If the cabinet has only one door, then only one drawer stop device is mounted on one side of a drawer and the other side unit is wasted. While a single unit could be mounted in regular orientation on one side and the same unit mounted in inverted orientation on the opposite side, this results in an unaesthetic appearance which is not desired.